Healing Dreams
by NAWag1R
Summary: Trapped in a dream Jeb comes face to face with his fears. Cain must get him out before it destroys his son's mind


#2 (the Jeb version)

Title: Healing Dreams

Author: NAWag1r

Characters/Pairing: Jeb, Cain, et al; Cain/DG

Summary: Trapped in a dream Jeb comes face to face with his fears and Cain has to pull him out before it destroys his son's mind.

Warnings: None

Disclaimer: Own the rights to Tin Man I do not.

Jeb tossed and turned in his sleep. It was starting again. The nightmares. They had stopped when he was 12. But now that Wyatt was back, now that his father was back, alive and real, the dreams had come back, too. They were different this time though. This time there were two of him. The little boy was then and the young man he was today. He watched as his mother, father and himself were beaten. He watched as his father was pushed and dragged over to the tin suit. He tried to move but was frozen in place. He screamed at the longcoats to let Wyatt go. Screamed to Wyatt that he was there and was going to get him out. He had no idea that in reality he was screaming and that his father was trying everything he could think of to wake him.

Wyatt woke when he heard the screaming. He listened for a moment before he realized that it was Jeb, his son. He bolted out of bed and ran to his son's room. Jeb was caught in a nightmare thrashing wildly and tangled in his sheets. Wyatt sat next to him and tried to calm him. He tried to wake him but nothing was working. DG entered the room and he looked up at her with sadness in his eyes.

"I can't wake him. I don't know what to do." Wyatt told her.

"You are doing the best thing you could do right now. Just hold on to him. Do you want me to get Raw?" DG asked.

"I suppose. Maybe his gift could help him," Wyatt said sadly. DG left and returned quickly with Raw in tow. Wyatt sighed as he held and rocked his son. Jeb had stopped screaming but it was more due to the fact that he had lost his voice than calming. Jeb's breathing was short and fast and he moaned and whimpered every now and then. Wyatt couldn't stop the tears that poured down his face.

Jeb had finally broken free from where he had been locked in place. The scene had changed. He was in the woods there were longcoats every where. He had to run. He had to hide. Nowhere was safe. He couldn't stop. If he stopped they'd catch him. He kept running.

Raw gently touched Jeb's forehead and closed his eyes. He was still for a few moments. Raw looked at Wyatt with concern and sadness etched plainly on his face.

"Scared. Running. Trapped in dream, cannot find way out." Raw told him.

"So what can we do? How do I help him?" Wyatt asked.

"Must go into dream."

Wyatt looked at Raw skeptically. "You can do that?"

"Not me. You must go."

"What? How?" Wyatt was floored. Was it even possible to enter some one else's dream?

"DG will help." Raw assured him.

"DG will what? I don't know how to do that." DG protested.

"Magic create bridge and anchor for mind to travel."

"DG, please help me," Wyatt pleaded.

"Cain, I… I don't know how. I want to, God, believe me I want to. But I don't know how," DG said as the tears fell.

"I know how, my darling." Queen Lavender said from the doorway. "First, Ambrose, could you please go see to Azkadellia."

"But they're my friends…" Glitch protested.

"I know but we need as few distractions as possible." Lavender said. Glitch left the room and Lavender explained that DG's magic would serve as a bridge for Wyatt and a guide for both of them back to the waking world.

"Will I be aware of what's going on in the dream?" DG asked.

"No, but you will be able to tell if something goes wrong and you will have the ability to pull Mr. Cain out and back into his own mind. This is not without it's risks but I agree with Raw's assessment that it is the only way to bring the young Mr. Cain back. Raw and I will remain close by in case you need help. Good luck to all of you." Lavender kissed DG's forehead and Raw hugged her close then they left the room.

"Get comfortable, Cain." DG quipped. Wyatt gave her a small smile and shifted himself and Jeb down further on the bed so that DG had enough room to sit. DG placed one hand on Wyatt's forehead, the other on Jeb's and closed her eyes.

Wyatt opened his eyes to find himself in a dark forest. There was very little light and the silence was deafening. Wyatt looked around wondering how he was going to find Jeb. Finally he did the only thing he could think of.

"JEB!" he yelled. He waited for a few moments. "Jeb, where are you?" Again he waited. "Son, please answer me!"

"You can't be here! You're dead!" Jeb said from where he was hiding among the trees.

"I'm not dead. I'm here. I'm real. I'm here to take you home."

"You can't! There is no home and you aren't real!"

Jeb, please believe me. I am real. Come out here and talk to me."

"NO!"

Wyatt groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face and through his hair. He was getting nowhere fast. Finally he decided to play the "Dad" card. "Come out here, now!"

"NO!"

"Jebediah Virgil Cain, you come out here right now or I will come in there after you!" He waited and before long he heard a rustling and a small boy of about 10 bounded out of the woods.

"Dad!!" the boy yelled as he pounced on Wyatt.

"Jeb?" Wyatt looked at the boy. It was Jeb but not as he was expecting him. "Heya, Sport." He said as he hugged the boy close.

"I'm sorry I was hiding. Big me said that there were bad guys in the woods."

"And is Big You still in the woods?" Wyatt asked. Little Jeb nodded. "Well then I think we need to get him out here so we can talk." Seconds later Older Jeb stalked out of the woods toward Little Jeb.

"I told you to stay with me!" he told the boy.

Little Jeb stuck his tongue out at his older counterpart. "You may not believe it's really Dad but I do so there!" Little Jeb looked at Wyatt. "Can we go home now, Dad? I don't like it here any more."

Wyatt smiled. "Yes we can go home. You see that light over there?" Wyatt pointed to a bright light not too far down the path. "That's the way home."

Older Jeb scoffed. "You expect me to believe that? How did you even get here?"

"You mean how did I get into your dream? It's easy when you know a magical princess. DG helped me come here to get you out. You've been trapped in this dream most of the night and part of the morning. That Light? That's DG's magic leading the way back to the waking world. All you have to do is take my hand and I'll lead you home." Wyatt shifted Little Jeb in his arms and offered Older Jeb his hand.

"Why should I trust you? Why should I trust her? This was all her fucking fault anyway."

"Watch you mouth, young man! She didn't know any better. She was only a child."

"So was I!! But I had to grow up fast because you were gone!"

"Jeb just take my hand and we can talk about this in the real world." Wyatt said calmly.

"Put him down first," Older Jeb said as he pointed at Little Jeb.

Wyatt looked at the boy. He hugged him tightly and set him down on the ground. Little Jeb walked over to Older Jeb and held his hand. "There," he said holding his hand out again, "can we go home now?"

"No! You weren't there! You were never there! I don't need you! I'm not a child! Stop treating me like one!" As Jeb shouted these words Little Jeb faded and vanished into Older Jeb leaving only one.

"You're MY child!! You always will be. I tried. I tried to protect you the best way I knew how. Take my hand and we'll talk about this." Jeb hesitated for a moment. "Damn it, Jeb! Take my hand."

Jeb finally took Wyatt's hand and the Light surrounded them. Moments later they found themselves in Jeb's room in the palace looking at each other. As they shook off the remnants of the dream world DG slipped quietly out of the room leaving father and son alone.

Jeb pried himself out of his father's arms and sat at the head of his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest. Wyatt sat at the foot of the bed watching Jeb.

"Jeb?"

Jeb looked up. "I don't want to talk about it."

Wyatt shook his head. "We're going to talk about it. We need to. Do you really blame her?"

"No, yes, maybe, I don't know! Yeah, a lot of bad things happened to her, but at least she got to have a childhood. She got to grow up not running from Longcoats. She had a mother and a father to take care of her."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. It had to be tough. There's no way I can know what it was like for you. But I am here now." Wyatt told him.

"Yeah, I know. But I'm all grown up now. I'm not a child anymore." Jeb said sadly.

Wyatt looked at Jeb. "You will **always** be my child. 5, 15 or 50, you will still be my child. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think about you. Wondering if you were alive. Hoping that you were safe and happy. They were the foolish dreams of a desperate, broken man but they were all I had."

Jeb wiped at his eyes trying to keep the tears from falling. "I tried, Dad. I tried so hard to be strong. I tried to take care of us but I was just a little kid. And we were running all the time. We were never in one place for very long. I never had any friends. Friends were dangerous." Jeb was quickly losing his battle to stay in control of his emotions. "I missed you so much. But Mom wouldn't talk about you. I stopped asking after a while cause it made her sad and angry. So I just quit asking. If I did get a chance to be around kids my age and they asked about you I just said I didn't remember and left. It wasn't a good life for a kid. It wasn't a good life for anyone!" Tears rolled down Jeb's face as he began sobbing. Wyatt pulled Jeb into his arms and rocked him as if he were that little boy of the past.

"I know. It was a horrible way to live and I'm so sorry. There are a hundred things I could have done differently. But I can't change the past. All I can do is be here for you now." Wyatt told his as he held Jeb tighter.

"I love you, Dad." Jeb whispered.

"I love you too, Jeb. I always have and I always will. Close your eyes and rest. I'll stay till you fall asleep."

They sat there together for a while. Cain finally laid Jeb down on his bed and covered him with the blankets. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to his son's head and quietly left the room.

DG was waiting for him out in the hallway. "He blames me, doesn't he?"

"DG, that's…" Wyatt started but she cut him off.

"It's okay. More people should really. After all it was my fault. I'm the one that freed the witch and let her take Az." DG said quietly.

"DG, it was not your fault that you got tricked by that old witch. You were just a little girl. But all that is over now. Jeb and I are back together. Father and son, like it should be. And you are back with your family, just as it should be. Everything is going to take time to get back to normal but we'll all get there. Now, let's all go get some sleep."

Wyatt thought about what had just happened. It was a huge step forward in getting his son back. It was going to take time but they would get there. He smiled as he climbed back into his bed. He stopped and turned toward the door when he heard a noise. He saw DG standing in the doorway.

"Is there something wrong, DG?" he asked.

"No, but what happened tonight made me realize that we shouldn't put things off or bottle things up." She said as she walked into the room, closing the door behind her. "Sometime in these past few months I think I fell in love with you. I know that you are going to have all these reasons why we shouldn't be together but I have one really good reason why we should. I love you, Wyatt Cain. So I just have one question: Got room for one more, Tin Man?"

Wyatt looked at DG seeing love and sincerity in her eyes. He smiled. "Hop in, princess." They climbed into bed together and he held her close as they fell asleep. His last thought before sleep took him was 'Everything is going to be okay.'


End file.
